OPINION:
Last week, I received a message from America’s top spy. You did, too, but if you missed it, no worries. I’ll fill you in.
Noting that “the Intelligence Community recognizes the importance of informing the public of foreign efforts to influence our democratic processes,” Avril Haines, the U.S. director of national intelligence, sent us “the first of what will be regular updates regarding such threats.”
Of particular and immediate concern, she said, are Iran’s rulers, who are becoming “increasingly aggressive in their foreign influence efforts,” adapting their “cyber and influence activities, using social media platforms and issuing threats.”
These efforts, she said, are supported by Iran’s intelligence services, which are eager “to stoke discord and undermine confidence in our democratic institutions.”
Over recent weeks, she added, “We have observed actors tied to Iran’s government posing as activists online, seeking to encourage protests, and even providing financial support to protesters” in the U.S.
Let me remind you that, in addition to funding these anti-Israeli, pro-Hamas and anti-American demonstrators, Iran’s government has long been providing munitions and other support to its proxies — Hamas, Hezbollah, Syrian and Iraqi militias, and the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Ms. Haines’ update did not surprise the think tank denizens over which I preside. Last month, we published a monograph titled “Cognitive Combat: China, Russia, and Iran’s Information War Against Americans.”
In the introduction, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Bradley Bowman states that Iran’s rulers are waging “information warfare to oppress the Iranian people, threaten dissidents, magnify anti-American voices, manipulate Western opinions, threaten Israel, and enfeeble U.S. foreign policy.”
In March, FDD’s Annie Fixler and Mark Montgomery reported that Tehran “has dramatically stepped up its cyberattacks against the United States since Oct. 7,” the day Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and carried out a barbaric pogrom, initiating a war that is still underway.
My colleagues noted that Iranian hacking groups have become increasingly adept at reconnaissance on targets, gaining access to their networks, launching malware and conducting psychological operations.
They added that these hackers “compromised the industrial computers of more than a dozen small water utilities across the United States last November.” Though the utilities managed to continue operating, we don’t know how much the hackers learned about America’s cyber vulnerabilities that will help them the next time they strike.
It’s logical to assume that Iran’s rulers are also being tutored by their friends in Russia, which has been in the disinformation and propaganda business since Soviet times.
You’ll recall that eight years ago, there was a heated controversy over allegations of Russian online “interference” in the U.S. presidential election. For what it’s worth, I don’t think the Kremlin cared which candidate won. Rather, the goal was to deepen Americans’ doubts about their democratic institutions.
A German government spokesman last week told reporters that Russia has also been waging a campaign of disinformation and cyberattacks against his country, coupled with at least one foiled act of terrorism. The purpose appears to be to weaken Berlin’s support for Ukraine’s resistance to Russian conquest.
Other European countries are being targeted by Russian operatives as well. “I think they are attacking us every day now,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told reporters at last week’s NATO summit. “Not only on critical infrastructure: hybrid attacks, cyberattacks, disinformation.”
Both Tehran and Moscow have been tightening ties with Beijing, home to the world’s most skilled internet outlaws, who commit cybertheft of intellectual property on an unprecedented scale, elevate cyber espionage to new levels, and hack for a variety of nefarious purposes.
What may be the Chinese Communist Party’s crowning achievement is TikTok — a social media platform to which millions of young Americans are addicted and through which they are influenced.
Legislation to force TikTok’s owners to divest — passed on a bipartisan basis in Congress and signed by President Biden in April — represents an important cyberbattle won.
But the war is far from over. The Network Contagion Research Institute, or NCRI, which aims to “identify and forecast cyber-social threats,” has found a “global web of nonprofits, fiscal sponsors, and alternative news sources” bankrolled by China’s rulers or their fellow travelers.
“While nominally focused on Israel,” a May NCRI report concludes, “the current protests can be better understood as a well-funded initiative driving a revolutionary, anti-government, and anti-capitalist agenda, with the leading organizations serving as versatile tools for foreign entities hostile to the U.S.”
Their intention is to “exacerbate societal tensions, polarize the younger generation” and promote the “destabilization of American institutions.”
I have space to mention just one more piece of evidence: Bill Gertz, The Washington Times’ national security correspondent, last week reported on a “joint security advisory” produced by the National Security Agency, the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and 10 other security services from Europe, Asia and Canada.
“The notice states that the hackers linked to China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) carried out sophisticated cyberattack operations against Australian and U.S. networks,” Mr. Gertz wrote.
I think it’s commendable that Ms. Haines is informing the public of “foreign efforts to influence our democratic processes.” I’d feel even better if she were doing more than providing information.
For example, is she advising Mr. Biden that his policy of attempting to bribe Iran’s rulers — they’re about $100 billion richer now than they were when he took office — is problematic?
Is she telling him that, in the view of the intelligence community, the U.S. has an urgent need to develop a serious strategy to defeat the war being waged against the U.S. and its allies in cyberspace by what should by now be recognized as the Beijing-Moscow-Tehran axis?
Perhaps she’ll give us a few hints in her next “regular update.”
• Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a columnist for The Washington Times.
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